It hurts SO MUCH Sometimes.

When honing goes well, it's an awesome feeling. Success, baby. Gotta love it. But Failure? GAAAAAAGH!

I have this Filarmonica #13 Inox. It's a lovely razor, and of course Filarmonica is quite the name these days.But it had this little chip, see? This little, itty bitty chip...


It's so small, I thought, I'll try to hone it out. Maybe it'll be a good learning experience!

So I tried it. Got out the old diamond plate, taped the spine, and started honing out that chip. The first thing I noticed was that the steel around the chip was also kind of broken, like it had been shattered when the chip happened.

The second thing I noticed was that, even after the chip was gone...the steel around where it had been was STILL broken!

Crap. The edge was crumbling right there. The steel was so weak that I could shatter it with my thumbnail, and I'm not even a Shaolin Monk!


Wellll...crap. I talked to Lynn Abrams, the godfather of razor honing, and he gave me some advice, but it all came down to this. Either throw it away, or hone and see if I can get past the weakened steel.

I found that I could actually see the weak spot on the bevel under the microscope--it reflected the light differently, so I could check as I honed. And hone I did.

For hours.

And hours.

And finally, FINALLY, today I got past the weakened steel. The razor is a good 2mm narrower than it was, but I got the defect out. HUZZAH!!!!

And I've spent 2 hours setting the bevel with no success.

GGGAHHHHH!!!!!!!